Praise is a debt we owe unto the virtue of others, and due unto our own from all whom malice hath not made mutes, or envy struck dumb.

And surely, he that hath taken the true Altitude of Things, and rightly calculated the degenerate state of this Age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hundred Years hence, when no Man can comfortably imagine what Face this World will carry.

Tis hard to find a whole age to imitate, or what century to propose for example.

It is we that are blind, not fortune.

I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others.

Where we desire to be informed 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own.

Half our days we pass in the shadow of the earth; and the brother of death exacteth a third part of our lives.